The Natural Force
by Delia Brethilwen
Summary: Young Bimma belongs to a race of which every member is Force sensitive. Their homeworld pulses with the energy of the Force, but it is neither light nor dark; this makes it a wanted place by both Jedi and Sith. Bimma must find a way to protect her home. Credit to my sister Hwiniol, who helped me with this one. But only a bit.


**AN: Okay so here's my first Star Wars fanfiction. I am not the biggest Star Wars nerd there is and haven't read every Star Wars related work there is, so there are likely to be mistakes in continuity or whatever in here. If you are reading this and you are a Star Wars fan, and you notice any errors in here, big or small, do not hesitate to point them out to me so that I may fix them as soon as possible. Thanks, and enjoy. Oh, and I'm pretty sure George Lucas and all of his associated companies own Star Wars. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)**

Bimma sits on the ground with a groan from her tired muscles. If Grandda keeps pushing her like this, she'll break down like their old utility droid does every month. As she stifles a yawn, she goes into a meditative trance, reaching out with the Force to take in her surroundings. The familiar jungle trees and vines that made her home appear, and then the animals and insects too. Then her family, and as she reaches further and further, the rest of the clan. Her breathing slows as she draws energy from the Force, using it to ease her aching muscles and to burn away the sleep. As she feels her body become rejuvenated, she starts to practice moving objects with the Force, part of the daily exercises Grandda makes all of the children do.

Starting with nearby pebbles, she collects a few and makes them hover in the air in front of her, constantly changing patterns as she reaches for bigger things. The next is her pet kanna, a feline so small it fits in the palms of her hands. Then larger rocks, then the rotting log that had once been a tree before being broken by the wind during the last big storm. Content with what she's done, she proceeds to gently replace each object she's picked up, ending where she'd begun with the pebbles. Then she opens her eyes and looks around her as the other children finish as well. One of them waves to her, and she smiles and waves back to the boy. He is Davac Yadai, her best friend and confidante. There are about twenty other children there, all of them Force sensitive and in training. All are being taught by Bimma's grandfather, Grandda to her and her siblings, King Kilio Haru to the others.

Kilio Haru is head of the clan and head of his family, which has been the ruling family of the clan for three hundred years. The clan is a race of humanoids that have lived on a jungle moon for as long as their collective memory goes back. Every member of the race is Force sensitive, but not in the way that most others in the galaxy think of it. They do not take sides in battles between Sith and Jedi, and for the most part try to stay out of trouble in the affairs of the galaxy. Their jungle moon pulses with the energy of the Force, and every child is raised knowing what it feels like to have it flow through them. It is even speculated among their elders that the first of their race were born from the pure Force energies that permeate the moon. But the energies are neither light nor dark; it is rather neutral, or natural. The power of the Force has always drawn others to the jungle moon, and so its inhabitants learned quickly how to defend themselves against malicious invaders using the Force.

Kilio is head trainer of the ones between the ages of four and thirteen years. Children younger than four are watched by his wife, Laniet, and any other parents who don't help with training or have another job; children older than thirteen are trained by his son, daughter-in-law, and eight others until they are twenty-five. Once they are twenty-five, they are considered an adult, and are allowed to go out into the galaxy unsupervised and do what they will. They are also allowed to marry at that age, to any that they choose, even from another race, although it is preferable that they marry someone of their own race. That is not to say that they think of themselves as higher than the other races; on the contrary, they believe all beings to be equal, no matter what their race or species.

Bimma Haru is eleven years old and the seventh child of thirteen. That being the case, it isn't likely that she'll ever be more than a sister princess to her eldest sibling, her sister Jemma. The head of the clan is always passed from eldest child to eldest child, regardless of gender. When her grandfather feels that he should pass responsibility and leadership on, he will give it to her father, who will give to Jemma when the time comes. The chances that Bimma will ever be queen depend on the length of life of the six siblings older than her; for her to become queen, all six would have to die with no children. But Bimma doesn't really think about that; she is content with being eleven years old and training her abilities through the Force.

Her training complete for the day, she stands and stretches, feeling the sun warm her face as a stray beam hits her. Davac walks over to her now and his tall form blocks the single ray. He is only thirteen, but already he is five and a half standard feet tall, and still growing. Most of the race become very tall, the tallest ever having reached eight and a quarter feet. Bimma, by comparison, is only at four and three quarters, and so only reaches his shoulder. He has an annoying habit of resting one of his arms on the top her head when they are standing by each other, as if it is her duty in life to be an arm-rest for him. He doesn't do that now, because he is standing in front of her. She gives him a look; in the jungle, sunlight rarely reaches the ground or even the lower branches, and now he's gone and stolen the one ray that was shining. _Davac, you stole my sun,_ she thinks.

The race to which Bimma belongs has no vocal chords. They communicate telepathically through the Force. In place of normal human vocal cords, they have bird-like cords that allow them to make various chirps and whistles, and also songs. If one were to walk through their jungle while they were all singing, one would think they had strayed into a dream. Their singing goes beyond the beauty of the birds'; it is the sound the Force would make if it could make sound. Which it does, through them. And so Davac grins mischievously and thinks back, _I know. I thought I'd have a turn at it._

_Fine. I'll just go the top._ If you were really wanting sunlight, you could always climb higher up in the trees to the canopy, where the full impact of the sun shone all day. That is what Bimma means when she says she'll go to the top. Not waiting to hear what Davac would think, she runs lightly to the ladders that lead to the highest dwellings and begins to climb. When there is no more ladder, she leaps lightly from branch to branch, all the while going steadily higher and higher, until when she reaches the canopy, she is five hundred feet from the jungle floor. The warmth of the sun fills her as she sits carefully on a branch to soak it up. The sound of heavy breathing reaches her ears, and a few moments later, Davac appears on an adjacent branch, panting with the exertion.

_I'll never know how you can climb that fast, especially after training,_ he says as he settles onto the branch and catches his breath.

_It's the Force, Davac,_ she explains. _It's always here, especially after training, and it helps me climb fast, especially if I want to do it quickly._

_It must like you better than me, then, because I can make it halfway up, then I just seem to run out of it._

_Maybe you just don't know how to rely completely on it yet._

_ But I should; I'm thirteen now, and next year I'll begin training with your da. Shouldn't I know better? What if I'm not good enough, and I become an outcast?_

_ Oh, stop it. You know those stories aren't true. They're only told to frighten us into doing our training like we're supposed to._

_ How can there be stories if it's never happened?_ Bimma just rolls her eyes and gives him a playful shove. Only, it's a bit too much of a playful shove, and over the side goes Davac. Bimma reaches out and uses the Force to catch him before he falls even ten feet, bringing him back up to sit where he'd been. He's laughing his head off when he comes into view. _That was fun,_ he thinks.

_I'm glad you enjoyed it. Now maybe you'll stop worrying about things that won't happen._

_ Okay Bimma. Point taken. _They sit in silence, basking in the sun. Then Davac's stomach rumbles, and he says,_ Let's go see what there is to eat._

Bimma laughs; he's always hungry. _Alright, let's go._ And with that, she turns and jumps off her branch. Using the Force to keep branches out of her way, she free-falls for three hundred feet, then spreads her arms and legs and lets her clothing billow out to slow her descent. She had made these clothes herself, fashioning them after the skin flaps of a small flying mammal that was native to the jungle. The idea for the mammal was to make it able to glide from tree to tree, away from the ground and predators that would make a meal of it. The idea for her was to be a quick way to get down from the canopy without killing herself. She could use the Force to cushion her fall, but she finds it more fun to only use the Force to make the branches stay out of her way.

Coming out of free-fall, she glides to a stop on a branch just above the highest dwelling. From there she glides ever lower until she reaches the dwelling where her aunt, Gally Umbos, is cooking a meal for the children. Bimma hears the sounds of the older ones still training a few hundred feet away in the other trees; there is the hiss of lightsabers, the heavy footfalls of combat, and the silent strain of those who would rather fight with only the Force. As she lands lightly on the porch outside the dwelling, her aunt turns and smiles at her. _Bimma,_ she thinks. _You're just in time for some stew._

_ Davac's stomach is the perfect clock for your cooking,_ Bimma replies as she hugs her aunt.

_Ah, he'll be here shortly then?_ Gally turns back to the stew. At seven foot ten inches, with long black hair elegantly braided down her back and set off by her mid-tone blue skin, she is the epitome of her race's appearance.

_Yes, he will. And he'll eat whatever the others don't, as usual._ Bimma stands by her aunt and breathes in the steam coming from the stew pot. Her own skin is metallic silver and almost blends with her white curly hair and white training outfit. In fact, the only color on her is her violet eyes, and the purple swirls on her face that mark her as a princess-sister to the one who will someday be Queen. Just then there is a light thump, and Davac appears in the doorway. It is impossible to tell where his clothes end and his skin begins, for his skin is pure white. The only colors on him are his eyes and hair: his eyes are violet like Bimma's right now, and his hair is a vibrant green. He walks over to the pot and leans over it, breathing deeply.

_It smells excellent, like always, _he thinks to Gally.

_You're going to have to wait until everyone else gets their food,_ she replies with a raised eyebrow. _And then you can fight over what is left with the other boys._

_And me,_ adds Bimma. She loves to eat, and has almost as voracious an appetite as Davac. Gally smiles at both of them as she shoos them away to go sit outside where the other children can be heard laughing and singing. Bimma and Davac are waved over by Davac's sister, Alurra, to sit by her and two other mutual friends, Fratan Pitu and Meglew Umbos. Alurra is the same age as Bimma, and has the same bright green hair as her brother to go with her silver skin; her eyes are currently a light blue, the color of peace. Fratan is two years younger than Bimma and Alurra and loves to be around his older friends; his skin is white, his hair is shaggy and dark blue, and his eyes are most always a mix of orange and black: happiness and mischief. Little Meglew is only five years old and has only just started her training; her mother, Gally, asked Bimma to keep Meglew company until she got used to the training. Her silver skin, eternally surprised white eyes, and pink hair suggest innocence as she sits quietly and watches her older cousin and friends with wide-eyed wonder.

_Hello, Meglew. How was training today? _asks Bimma as she sits down beside her and gives the little girl a hug. Bimma's young cousin doesn't know how to express herself in words yet, and so she sends a wave of emotions and pictures: tired, happy because she lifted five pebbles at once, hungry from running. Bimma smiles and thinks, _You will get used to it eventually, little Meglew. Soon you won't remember that the day's run ever used to tire you out._ Meglew smiles back, and then Gally pokes her head out of the window and does a little run of whistle notes that signals that the food is ready. The children line up according to age, youngest to oldest; although Davac isn't the oldest, he is still at the back of the line because of his reputation for devouring everything. When they have their food, the little group of friends sits back down and begins to eat. Bimma's kanna, whose name is Ting, comes and curls up in her lap, waiting to be fed. With a smile, Bimma picks a piece of meat out of her stew and feeds it to Ting.

When Bimma is done eating, almost everyone else is gone, including Meglew. Bimma, Alurra, Fratan, and Davac stand to take their bowls to the kitchen to be washed; Ting, dislodged from her seat in Bimma's lap, leaps to Bimma's shoulder now and wraps her long tail around Bimma's upper arm to keep herself stable. Bimma pets Ting as she places her bowl in a tub of soapy water, then follows her friends as they head to the jungle floor for a game of seektag. One person would be It, and the others would go hide while the person who's It counts to an agreed upon number. Then It goes to find the ones who hid and tries to tag them; the ones who hid can run away once they are found. What makes the game more interesting is the fact that they all can use the Force to hide themselves in plain sight and to give themselves bursts of speed. Another addition to the game is that It also has to avoid being tagged by the others, or else they have to be It again. Seektag is the four friends favorite game. They spend four hours playing it, and that's just one game. But at the end of the game, Bimma still hasn't been found. Fratan is It, and he's found Davac and Alurra, who are following him and helping him look for Bimma. Just then, Bimma glides down out of a nearby tree, lands quietly behind Fratan, and taps him on the shoulder. He jumps and turns around. Seeing her too-innocent smile, he throws his hands up and thinks, _Well, I suppose I'm It again._

Another four hours of seektag later, the sun is disappearing behind the horizon, even in the tops of the trees, and the four friends head towards their home. Because all the young ones of the race are trained in the village of the King, they are given a room in a dorm-like building. The girls have one tree, and the boys have another. The clan use the Force to influence the trees as they grow, creating the dwellings for them to live in. Alurra and Bimma say good-night to Davac and Fratan and then go up to their rooms. Bimma's is high up, almost to the top of the tree, and she begins to climb when she senses her father's anger. She reaches out with the Force, and she quickly goes to see what is the matter.

She finds him with her mother, her grandfather the king, and a man with bronze-colored skin, standing and conferring with one another. _They say that they don't want to start a war, but that if we don't give them a place on our world, they will have to take it by force_. The bronze-colored man was thinking; he is a negotiator.

_You told them that we will defend ourselves if it comes to that? _That mind is Kilio's. Bimma can't understand what they're talking about, and so she tries to listen harder. She reaches her mind to the negotiator's, trying to read it, but then she feels a hand on her shoulder. She looks up in surprise to see her mother looking down at her. She missed her mother leaving while she had been trying to read the man's mind. Now her mother thinks, _Come, Bimma, these discussions are not for you._ Bimma consents to have her mother lead her to her room, but before she leaves, Bimma asks, _What were they talking about?_

_ The Jedi want a place to use the Force that flows here. They want to be able to utilize its power as well, and Grandda doesn't want them here._

_ Oh. We will fight them for our land?_

_ Yes, if it comes to that. Let us hope that it will not._

Bimma nods. _Good night, Ma._

_ Good night Bimma._ Her mother leaves, and Bimma goes to her bed, changing into her nightclothes. She watches the planet that her jungle moon orbits rise into view, its deserts that stretch across the entire surface painting the landscape reddish-tan. She falls asleep wondering if she will fight with her mother and father if the Jedi come to take their land.


End file.
